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Forest of the Dead (TV story)
Forest of the Dead 'is the ninth episode of the fourth series of ''Doctor Who. It was written by Steven Moffat, directed by Euros Lyn and featured David Tennant as the Tenth Doctor and Catherine Tate as Donna Noble. Overview To be added Synopsis Trapped and ensnared by the ever-advancing Vashta Nerada, the Doctor and the remaining survivors, including the mysterious River Song, make for the centre of the planet, wherein lies to answer to the mystery of the population's disappearance and the solution to deal with the flesh-devouring shadows. Meanwhile, Donna awakens in a world not to dissimilar to her own and seems to have constructed a life and family for herself in virtually no time at all... Plot Still cornered by the Vashta Nerada, River uses her sonic blaster to open up an escape hole and everybody flees through it. In her front room, the little girl watches the events on her TV, while her dad tells her that it's all in her imagination. She flicks through channels, which view different sections of the library before coming to a channel showing Donna being brought out of an ambulance. When she wakes up in her room at a treatment facility, she is met by Dr. Moon, who she suddenly has memories of receiving treatment from. In what feels like to Donna like a matter of minutes, she goes for a walk in the facility grounds, gets introduced to Lee McAvoy, goes fishing with him, gets married to and has two children with him. While Dr. Moon congratulates her on how well she's integrated, his image is suddenly replaced by that of the Doctor, when he suddenly vanishes. When Dr. Moon tells her that she suddenly forgot, Donna greets Moon as if he's only just arrived. In the Library, the Doctor scans for Vashta Nerada in another section, using another chicken leg from one of the others' lunches to test it. He finds a signal from the Moon interfering with the screwdriver so River offers him her screwdriver to use. He pounces on this and argues with her about what she is to him in the future but Lux shuts them both up and River gains his trust by whispering something in his ear. Lux explains the doctor moon which maintains the main computer at the core of the planet. The Doctor figures that the interference is coming from it when it suddenly projects an image of Donna. He and River try to get it back with their screwdrivers when Anita notices that she has two shadows and draws their attention. Everybody replaces their helmets, including Anita's; the Doctor tints her visor to try and fool the Vashta Nerada into believing they're already inside. Suddenly the Doctor confers with River privately about the fact that there are five of them still alive - yet there are six people in the room. They all turn and see the Vashta Nerada, still using the body of Proper Dave, standing there and they all run. The little girl watches these events before switching back to Donna at home with her children when Lee returns. She says she's tired and suddenly it's midnight and she's about to go to bed. She suddenly receives a letter and it reads as a summons to the park tomorrow from a woman in a long, black gown. Despite it's ridiculousness, she decides to go and suddenly arrives the following day with her children. Sending them off to play, she speaks to the woman, who tells her about how things work in the fake world they're both residing in. Donna recognises her voice and she reveals herself as what remains of Miss Evangelista. The Doctor's party keeps fleeing from the Vashta Nerada while he stays behind to try and reason with it; Other Dave stays with him per River's instruction. The Vashta Nerade use Proper Dave's neural relay to communicate and they explain that they originated in the Library, not immigrated there, spawning in all the books across the planet. The Doctor suddenly notices Other Dave repeating himself, ghosting after having been killed by the Vashta Nerada. As they advance on him, he releases a hatch beneath him and grips on to a girder underneath to evade them, all the while the girl watches on TV. In the other world, Evangelista explains that, unlike Donna, she wasn't subject to a clean upload to the data core but as the copy of her consciousness caught in her neural relay was caught in the network when she died and was automatically uploaded. She claims that everybody in this world is all dead in a way; Donna gets angry when she insinuates that her children weren't ever alive at all. She looks over at them and spots that all the children in the park are the same boy and the same girl copied over. Donna tears the veil off her face to reveal her to be horribly disfigured and warped. The girl is terrified. River, Lux and Anita barricade themselves in and wait for the Doctor to return; while they wait, River tells Anita about the Doctor that she knows in the future, how armies would turn and run in fear of him while he'd just disappear back to his TARDIS and open it with the snap of his fingers. The Doctor arrives, having overheard everything, and doesn't believe what she says. Anita approaches the Doctor, looking for hope following what River had told her and asks what she had whispered to him earlier, promising him that his secrets are safe with her. The Doctor takes in the word 'safe' and thinks back to the data fragment from the Library's last message, "4022 people saved, no survivors", realising that the population wasn't safe but literally saved. He uses the terminal to demonstate that a massive power surge occurred 100 years before, the sheer discharge of 4022 people teleporting out when the Vashta Nerada started hatching. However, with nowhere safe to send them on the planet, the computer saved them to the hard drive. Donna starts to get fragments of the real world back into her mind, enough to make her question the one she's in, but her denial keeps hold when her "daughter" hurts her knee. Evangelista tries to get her to let them go for her own good, but she ignores her and the girl gets angry. He dad tries to comfort her but she makes him disappear with the TV remote; she gets even more upset and angry and throws the remote. Suddenly all the systems in the Library deadlock shut and the planet's auto-destruct is activated. The girl watches as Donna's world starts to go wrong; she returns home with the children but the sky has gone red. Lux is assured that the doctor moon will stop the planet's maximum erasure to protect CAL, but the girl shuts him off with the remote and the systems shut down. Lux tells them they need to get to the main computer to fix the damage and River opens a gravity platform to get them to the core of the planet. In Donna's world, she puts her children to bed when her doubts about the world suddenly take affect and the children disappear. At the planet's core, the Doctor tries to reactivate the systems, while the little girl expresses great pain and pleads for help. All the Doctor's attempts to fix the core make the problem worse. Lux opens up the hatch to the main control node: CAL, the little girl with her mind placed into the computer to save her life, the life she'd been living with a dad and form all a dream. Lux refused to tell them about her previously because she's family, his grandfather's youngest daughter and his aunt. His grandfather's wish was that she be left to live that half-life she had in peace and so Lux agreed to protect her. To stop the countdown and save Charlotte, the Doctor tries to beam all the 4022 people out of the data core but Charlotte doesn't have enough memory space for the transfer so he decides to wire himself in and let her borrow his. Knowing that this is fatal, River tries to stop him but her ignores her and sends her with Lux to prime the Library for maximum download. After they've gone, Anita asks if the Vashta Nerada will accept the Doctor taking the downloaded people away and seal the planet off so they can swarm in peace and he says that they'd better take the deal because he knows that Vashta Nerada have already killed Anita. He offers the swarm levity because he has too, but only if they let the humans leave alive. Warning them about what he will do if they cross him, the Vashta Nerada give him one day to act and retreat. River returns and, upset to find Anita dead, decides the Doctor can't act on his own and knocks him out. When he wakes, he is handcuffed on the other side of the room while River wires herself up to the computer in his place; he pleads with her not to go through with it and tries to get out of the cuffs, but River tells him that if he dies now, she'll never meet him. She tells him about the last time she'd had with his future self and realises that her death now means that he always knew. The Doctor makes one last plea, citing the fact that she knew his real name, but she promises he will see her again and says goodbye before beginning the transfer when the countdown reaches zero. All the people in the data core, including Donna and Lee who are separated in the transfer, are returned to the Library, safe and sound. Later on, the Doctor finds Donna in reception as everybody leaves the Library before it's sealed off. Before they leave, the Doctor leaves River's diary and sonic screwdriver behind, taking a moment to wonder if Donna wanted him to look her up, but both agree not to. As a monologue of River talks about what kind of place the universe would become, the Doctor runs back and grabs the screwdriver, wondering why his future self would give it to her instead of working out a way to save her, when he pulls a small panel of the screwdriver, revealing a neural relay, Elated, he takes off. Running all the way to the planet's core, leaping down the gravity well, the Doctor shoves the screwdriver into the data core and uploads River to the computer, along with the restored data ghosts of Evangelista, Proper Dave, Other Dave and Anita. The episode ends of a monologue from River as the Doctor returns to Donna and the TARDIS, opening and closing the door with a snap of his fingers, while she finishes her story looking over Charlotte and the two digital children, bidding them goodnight and sweet dreams... Cast * The Doctor - David Tennant * Donna Noble - Catherine Tate * Professor River Song - Alex Kingston * Dr Moon - Colin Salmon * Proper Dave - Harry Peacock * Strackman Lux - Steve Pemberton * Anita - Jessika Williams * Other Dave - O-T Fagbenle * The Girl - Eve Newton * Dad - Mark Dexter * Lee - Jason Pitt * Ella - Eloise Rakic-Platt * Joshua - Alex Midwood * Miss Evangelista - Talulah Riley * Man - Jonathan Reuben Crew To be added References To be added Story Notes To be added Continuity To be added Home video and audio releases To be added External Links * Official ''Forest of the Dead'' page on '''Doctor Who Website